Markus Linnenbrink: This Vibrant Rainbow Room Is An Optical Illusion That Can Swallow You Up by Priscilla Frank

Huffington Post

16 October 2014

Even just setting your eyes upon an optical illusion can be a disorienting experience. Just imagine what it would be like to be fully engulfed within one.

That's exactly what viewers find out upon entering Markus Linnenbrink's "WASSERSCHEIDE(DESIREALLPUTTOGETHER)," which recently showed at Germany's Kunsthalle Nuernberg. Bold streaks of fuchsia, navy blue, aquamarine and yellow swallow the entire windowless museum space, locking viewers in a mind-melting display of colors gone wild. The technicolor display, although rendered in acrylic paint covered in epoxy on resin, looks as if a box of super-sized Crayola crayons overheated and exploded all at once.

Usually I do not need too much of an inspiration, just a space to be painted," Linnenbrink explained to The Huffington Post. "I love to create a dialogue between my work and the given space/architecture." The all encompassing work of op-art combines rigorous geometry with the dripping spirit of chaos, with dribbles and splatters of wet paint obscuring the perfection of the grid.

While previous art installations -- ahem, "Rain Room" -- have invited viewers into the space to physically interact with the artwork, Linnenbrink's rainbow room shows the simple power of merely folding the viewer into the fabric of the piece, stripped of other high tech frills.

My work is an offer to the viewer," he said. "It is about the way we experience the world through our eyes, how colors move us, guide us and make us react. Here i had the chance to create this total embrace of colors. The two connected rooms are giving the viewer the possibility to reread the process and embark on a trip through space defined by color, being always framed by it and being basically a part of the painting."

Would you venture into Linnenbrink's painted candyland or are you content to ogle his multicolored beast of a building at a distance? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.